Interesting quote on Autism

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If you are seriously interested in the subject of adaptive autism you might want to look at the following two sites. The first site has been on the web for over ten years, and the second is a recently published paper.
[Alas, as a first-time poster I'm not allowed to post links even in obfuscated form. Let's see if this workaround works, heh heh . . . ]

Google "autism theory" and click on the first link, titled Natural Autism.

Google "epjournal forager" and click on the first link (a pdf).

The two theories are mutually consistent.

Enjoy.

Cheers SitHappens, the "epjournal forager" pdf looked interesting, I'll definitely read more of that when I get time. It pretty much agrees with what I already thought from what I've seen.

I'm not convinced about the "autism theory" one though. It seems to me that the world is becoming more connected not less. So why would genes for "disconnected" people be on the increase? Also I struggled to understand some of it, could you explain what the hell "population surface" and "sparse outer reigons of a population" mean?

You appear to be wanting it both ways; on the one hand saying that 10,000 years isn't too long ago as an argument for not losing traits, but on the other claiming we were far more physically robust then (if we ignore the error that whilst cro-magnon is homo sapiens, neanderthals were not) which now suggests you think 10,000 years is plenty of time to adapt to changing environments. If we can adapt by losing muscle and bone mass then surely other traits can also disappear in the same time frame?



I think that is a rather bold claim. Just look at other primates such as chimps and gorillas; quite social and co-operative without agriculture. It seems to benefit them.



Indeed, but I also pointed out how even in the example you gave that I couldn't see how autistic traits would bestow any particular advantage.



I think we are probably arguing much the same thing here. Take a look at Sybil's excellent post about Sickle Cell Anemia. Autism could work in a similar fashion in being a beneficial gene(s) in the general population but in some combinations and circumstances it is manifested as autism which is in no way beneficial to the carrier.

I just happen to reject the premise in the original post that "Yes! We are the next quirky stage of Evolution" for the reasons that:

1 - There are no stages. Evolution is a process.
2 - I don't personally see any advantages to being autistic. If there were we wouldn't have so many people here telling the same sorry stories time and again.

nemorosa wrote

But you can have it both ways. Although they were much more physically robust than us, they were still human and we will posess many of their traits, 10,000 years is enough time for us to lose many traits but there will be many that we haven't lost.

Cro-magnons have now been classified under the general category of homo sapien, where as neandrthals haven't, but whether or not there was interbreeding between cro-magnons and neanderthals is still up for dispute. And obviously some think that there is a link between autism and the neanderthals so we can't rule out the idea of neanderthal ancestry for certain.

nemorosa wrote


Yes but what I'm talking about is MASS co-operation and socialisation, chimps and gorillas live in small isolated groups in the forest. Modern humans co-operate on a world wide scale, and on a nation-wide scale they all obey laws, accept the same currency, and speak the same language. The aggricultural stage was a step towards wider co-operation and socialisation. And people who exibit autistic traits may be suited to a different stage in this timeline.

nemorosa wrote


I would imagine that eventually, people will be so connected and interdependant accross the world that communication and decision making will become more automated. This will make accepted social codes that we struggle to follow become more irrelevant as time goes on. This means that secretaries will be replaced by answering machines, checkout workers by self-checkout machines, bank cashiers by cashpoints etc...

In this situation, those who can build and program these machines will be of more value than those with good social skills.
(Granted what I have said here is simply the way I think that things may pan out. But it is still a hypothetical situation where autistic traits may be beneficial.)

nemorosa wrote


But "being autistic" means different things dependant on the point on the spectrum and the individual affected. A small minority of autistic people have "savant" abillities, and are you saying that these abillities are in no way advantagous? Surely you must accept that in some situations, being autistic is advantagous?

But you were the one saying 10,000 years wasn't enough time to lose traits! Make up your mind



I wouldn't really argue with any of that but it isn't of specific relevance to the premise "Yes! We are the next quirky stage of Evolution". I thought we were talking about robustness and the natural selection of genetic characteristics? Had the debate moved on whilst I wasn't looking?



You see, this is where you seem to be talking about something completely different again. I had been arguing against your suggestion that autistic traits were a benefit in the past since humans had always been comparatively weak and that being social was a benefit to the individual, the group and the species just as it is with other primates. Why have we suddenly moved from discussing hunter-gatherer era to modern civilisation and post industrial society? I'm confused



That's a whole lot of maybes...
One could equally envisage a scenario whereby some kind of global disaster virtually wipes out humanity and the key to survival lies in physical strength and the kind of social chicanery required to negotiate with others and make alliances. But we aren't interested in the future but the selective forces acting NOW.



Just like those who can build and program the machines are really appreciated now? Who makes most of the most of the money in society right now, the engineers or the managers and executives?

And anyway, thanks to the tight social integration of the human race you don't actually need many people with the ability to make and program such machines for everyone to benefit. Such skills don't do very much for the individual.



Like you say it's just a small minority with "savant" abilities. Whilst having such gifts may help them in their work or interests, I don't see how being able to recite Pi to 30 decimal places (for example) aids surviving to sexual maturity and then acquiring a mate with whom to pass on your genes.

Thanks for the interest, OrangeCloud!

According to dictionary d o t com a surface is "the outer face, outside, or exterior boundary of a thing; outermost or uppermost layer or area." A population surface is therefore the outer face, outside, or exterior boundary of a population, or its outermost or uppermost layer or area." Basically it's what we call a frontier wilderness. In a frontier wilderness where there is food enough within traveling range to feed only one person only a lone person can survive -- and there is no use there for social skills. The force of the autism theory derives from the fact that there have always been frontier wildernesses surrounding human populations and always people in contact with them, so that corresponding adaptation -- and autistic traits -- were inevitable.

The Sparseness Adaptation theory of autism (click "Theory" on the autismtheory org website) does not say that autism genes are becoming more prevalent: It says they are becoming more prominent: "Most of that autism-generating wilderness has disappeared in only the last few millennia. The autism present in the human population today carries with it an adaptive inertia on the scale of at least hundreds of thousands of years, and of millions when the entire history of hominid evolution is considered. The result is that autism doesn’t vanish instantly but is, rather, made more obvious by expanding population. An autistic person is much more visible today than ten thousand years ago because he has been forced by burgeoning population into contact with others, and with fewer exits."

I answered "silly" simply because evolution is all about being the most probable mate for the opposite sex. Aspies, for all of our strengths are just not that strong in the field of attracting the opposite sex.

nemorosa I think that we are just misunderstanding the points that we are trying to make to one another. When communicating online about complicated things, the context can become blurred and misunderstandings can arise. I don't really think that we disagree that much when it comes to the substance of what we think. I think that this debate, if continued, would just turn into "but I was only tring to say X" and "but you were the one who said Y" etc...

SitHappens wrote

Thanks for explaining this to me, it makes perfect sense to me now.

I think that more research needs to be done to try and figure out whether or not the increase in the rates of autism and aspergers are due entirely to diagnostic procedure or not. Obviously this theory implies that this is the case, with autism just becoming more noticible as the population expands, and hence more being diagnosed. But if the rate increase of autism and aspergers is not entirely due to changes in diagnostic procedure, something else may be going on here as well. But I definitely think that there is truth in this theory.

It is said by some that Asperger Syndrome is a new stage in human evolution. If this is true then only partially, as there are certainly aspects of the syndrome that are not desirable and should better not be passed on to future generations; that are not improvements at all. These are things like motor clumsiness, impaired spatial ability, impaired general intelligence, oversensitivity, rigidity (inflexibility), being math-impaired, and being inclined to obsessions and compulsions.

Other Aspergoid aspects though are indeed superior and should be striven for in posterity. This need not take long; evolution is a much faster process than commonly thought, and through careful selective procreation significant improvement is achieved in a mere one or two generations, as we have known for millennia from animal breeding. Care must be taken to tune down the undesirable, disabling aspects at the same time. Examples of superior aspects are honesty (inability to lie and pretend), sense of justice, conscientiousness (including ability to focus on a subject, and the other aspects mentioned in my article on conscientiousness), and a wide associative horizon (including not being restricted in one's thinking by the conventions of the herd, the dull mass).

It must also be noted that some of the undesirable aspects are really the high end or exaggerated form of desirable aspects, so that one has to find an optimum there and not go further. For instance, rigidity (inflexibility) is the high end of ability to focus, to concentrate, on a subject. With too much focus it becomes difficult to switch to another subject, which is what rigidity is. And obsessions and compulsions are the high end of conscientiousness.

Further it can be said that the profound social problems of people with Asperger largely result from the difference in communication style with the normal people, and from their honesty not being tolerated, and do not primarily originate inside themselves. So those problems will disappear as more and more are born who naturally use the Aspergoid (literal and verbal) style and are honest. So these apects - the social problems - need and can not be outbred in their own right. The same goes for things like violent outbursts and grim sadism; such does not originate inside the person with Asperger, but is a response to being exposed to the bullying, harassment and torture of one's environment for years or decades at a stretch.

- Paul Cooijmans

I agree with him. I'm not a shell and nor do I carry my sutism around in a suitcase. I'm autistic and proud!

Evolution is a sequence of random events. There is no "superior" or "inferior" form of organism, because essentially there is no perfect standard that can be achieved. The next step - as you call it - is just the next organism (or type of) that survives, not the most intelligent one. Because both NTs and autistics can survive, neither can be distinguised from the other as another step in evolution.

To answer the poll question, yes and no and maybe. Yes because evolution can be changes in a species that make them different than their ancestors. Maybe because evolution is usually due to genetic mutation, and autism could possibly be a genetic mutation, but it could also not be. No because humanity is essentially beyond "survival of the fittest" and therefore that allows us to become more diverse, not more uniform as in all autistics or all non-autistics. However, if anything, I would think autistics would be less likely to reproduce, and therefore would be less likely to pass on their genes.

Evolution. Excuse my ignorance in the respect but one of my thoughts is that, providing we can learn to accept our desire for aloneness, we can model sef'sufficiency. If more people are being born with an ASD then maybe Homo Sapien needs to learn about relationship without codependency? An obvious result of there being more people with an ASD is that there would no doubt be less Homo Sapiens being born.

So HS learns a valuable lesson and every other species benefits also.

I think if humanity survive the next 100 years then the next step would be human that is almost mute the sound and the other senses.
It's already happening. Not in autism though, at least, not in the majority of autistic people. We are sense sensitive and this continuing changing society and its technologically revolution is unbearable to most of us. I don't mean technology as in computers but the growing cities and bright lights and crowds and smells. People work work work, rush rush rush. Even the way we are given information is condensed just so we can go to the next thing that will take 2 minutes to do. How are we supposed to adapt to that when we like familiarity,routine and just need things to slow way down to be able to feel comfortable?

Even our pedantic way of speaking will change. On an episode of QI Stephen Fry goes into this.

Of course not a lot of people will agree with what I'm saying, especially those people who can hardly notice how much society has changed.